Patch Blog: The Money Pit's South Wall

Phase one of the south retaining wall is complete with a job done well and quickly without a hitch. Footings and concrete block portions are installed with fencing to finish later. Watch some clips of its construction. We will add brick facing and finish with wood. I hope to get an authentically older look with a mix of old red colors, and if I can get something resembling real clinker bricks, I would love to add them in random spots for a textured and period look. The photograph of the finished wall here in this post is of a similar wall in Pasadena that has the right look. Excavation for the east wall is underway.  

I was told by some neighbors that the group Van Halen, who were from Pasadena, had played on the rear porch at parties in the 1970’s before they became a Hall of Fame rock band.  

Neighbors further described to me the extent to which the most recent occupants of the house had been nuisances to the area, with cops called frequently for drunken disruptions. Suggestions were made that many of them had criminal records and that the property was used like an illegal halfway house, and one neighbor commented, “I don’t think it was all that half-way.”

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